For our third week of class the subjects of the articles were more open ended. There were three articles for the entire week but they lead to a very good discussion between my classmates and I. I think that the most interesting aspect of the week was the discussion on online classes vs. in-person classes. This topic is something that is very important to students now a days and discussing the pros and cons with classmates was informative, and is what really helped me connect these readings to my real life. I was also very interested in the Online Research Methods Knowledge Base. I am very appreciative of Joyce giving us this resource because it is online and always accessible, it is also presented in a way that is easy to navigate.
In talking about online class communities and the pros and cons of them vs. face-to-face class communities with my classmates many points were made that helped me assess my feelings towards the subject. I think some of the best points were made by Jeffery Mason, “I am not sure that these classes would work with everyone or across age groups. This course is a summer course and sometimes it is difficult to manage a class during work, nice weather, and summer in general. This being said there must be a certain internal drive to motivate an individual to get their work done on their own.” This statement is something that I felt like I could really connect with and I felt the same way about online classes in general. But there were other points made by students that I would have never thought of about the pros and cons of online classes and that is why I think I benefit the most from these discussions. The post by Jamie Coit really surprised me, “I think online discussions give students who might not normally participate in class to interact online. Another positive thing about online discussions is it allows students to actively formulate a response instead of having to say it right away”. I never really thought about how much better a discussion could be if students had time to fully develop and understand their own thoughts before posting and the benefits of this are extremely positive. This way you can have an affective discussion.
The use of the online research textbook was helpful this week as well. The fact that it was spit into sections that were easy to navigate through was very helpful. I thought the introduction to different research designs was interesting. The site defined research design as “the structure of research -- it is the "glue" that holds all of the elements in a research project together. We often describe a design using a concise notation that enables us to summarize a complex design structure efficiently.” This was useful because I could connect it to the research project we are doing for this class. I found on this website that the type of research that I will use for this project is known as group research. Vaguely put towards my project each group in a design is given its own line in the design structure.
Throughout the next week I will be using this online textbook to help with the final project for this class. I think it will be interesting to also tie in some of the class discussion topics on online classes and technology. I think that after the online discussions I have come to realize that although online classes sometimes are annoying because everything you have to do is on your own time, there are so many more benefits. But, I still feel like I personally benefit from taking a face-to-face personal class.
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